Meet Me in the Sun
by Euregatto
Summary: "You, however, can't go home. Nor can you leave it… and you're still"—she leans forward, lips brushing the opposing trainee's own—"the freest out of all of us…" -Minnie, Annie x Mina


_Burn in their fires, you messed up_

_Stop hating yourself, you are loved_

_You find yourself in a cold place, you find yourself alone_

_We're floating towards to sun, I was stuck in your head_

_Meet me in the sun (to the bitter end)…_

_"Mirrormask" - Dabin_

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"We can run away from here."

A pair of iridescent azure orbs gazes judgmentally down at the city fifty meters below. The tepid breeze that whips up here is wild and cool, raking invisible fingers through her golden bangs and racing over the edge of the barrier she's placidly seated on. Gradually she turns to the figure beside her, legs kicking playfully in the air like it's water, ignoring the fact that if either of them slipped it would be a long way down.

They had been sitting at their post here for almost an hour, watching the sun descend along its arc in the sky, rays of light piercing topaz colors through the layers of crimson and cobalt. The carefree girl's remark catches her blonde friend off guard and she has to take a moment to respond. "What makes you say that?"

"I think a lot about what Eren said, right? About going outside the walls?"

"It's dangerous to take what he says seriously, Mina."

Mina Carolina tucks her legs up against her chest and huffs into her knees. A torrent of air blasts by them, tousling her obsidian pigtails and her friend's bangs again, who reflexively sooths them back behind her ears. "You take him seriously too, Annie."

"That's why I know best."

"A_nyway_," Mina continues, "I've been mulling over it… I don't want to be in these walls either. I joined the trainees so I could become a soldier in the Scouting Legion! I'm tired of being overshadowed by fear and oppression… aren't you?"

"I guess."

"Well, you should run away with me."

"I would love to," Annie muses in return, "I could finally go home." Her slender fingers curl around the girl's pigtail and tug it, firm but gentle, inducing a small giggle in Mina who reflexively grabs Annie's wrist to keep her from pulling to hard, just as she had done countless times before. "You, however, can't go home. Nor can you leave it… and you're still"—she leans forward, lips brushing the opposing trainee's own—"the freest out of all of us…"

"I wouldn't call this _freedom_."

Annie huffs under her breath. "Yes, but I also wouldn't call living within these Walls _freedom_ either."

The kiss is short, tender, the invisible scent on Mina's skin intoxicating, like spider venom, and flesh frigid to the touch. Annie's heart flutters about the cavern of her chest as the familiar curves of Mina's mouth lock perfectly into place with hers. When the blonde pulls back Mina is laughing light-heartedly, kicking her legs in the air again. "You would have been a pretty good kisser," she chimes matter-of-factly.

"And you would've been great with your tongue."

Mina squeals as a blush paints flames across her cheeks. "Annie!"

"You would have been great at so many things…" She slumps forward, burying her forehead into her calloused palms. "At living… at being a mother, or a grandmother, or a wife… I'm so, so sorry I got you killed… I'm a _monster_…"

Mina slides her hand up along the soldier's spine. "I know, in your heart, who you really are, Annie. You aren't the kind of person who would kill people because you _could_, heck, you aren't even as cold-hearted as everyone makes you seem. Everything you do is justified."

"Justified by my own voided fears… and my own feigned imagination."

"Annie…"

She imagines the first person she killed – how she crushed them in the heel of her pseudo-Titan's palm and the sickening crack of bones filling her ears, overlapping the hysterical sobs of her real body nestled in the neck of her form's spine, defining the days she spent trying to tell herself, over and over and over again, that she didn't love the way he had screamed for the mercy she didn't not give him. "I _like_ killing, Mina. I can't excuse my way out of being who I truly am."

"Doesn't make you a monster."

"I loved you."

The remark is abrupt, candidly forthright and grim all the same. Annie's shoulders quiver as she struggles to choke down the rest of her confession – _I still love you_, she wants to admit, undaunted by her cowardly silence, _I'm so, so sorry I killed you… I'm so, so sorry for everything I've done._

Mina carefully takes Annie's hand and weaves their pallid fingers together. "I loved you too. Please don't apologize… I don't think you're a monster."

"I don't believe you," she hisses, snapping her hand away, "I _can't_ believe you. You're just a figment of my fucked-up head!" Mina winces when Annie whirls to face her. "Everything you're saying is what I _want_ to hear! It isn't the real you!"

"You can't have the real me," Mina remarks placidly, her soothing voice crippling any and every ounce of pent up rage boiling within Annie's chest, "and that, Ann, is why you're imagining fake me. If what I say doesn't matter, you should let me go… stop tormenting yourself, and let me be _free_." She scoots closer to the edge of the plateau, teetering dangerously on the rim of the jagged concrete, heels pressing back against the wall. "_We_ can be free…"

"Maybe some other day," Annie replies grimly.

"And why not?"

"For every other reason I haven't offed myself yet."

"You haven't gone home?"

Annie laughs humorlessly in her throat. "No, I'm just a monster in these cages, and I have yet to break down the gates. Then…"

Mina spreads her arms like angelic wings, kicking out her legs so all of her weight rocks her forward right off the wall's edge. "Then we'll all be free!"

"Yeah," she mutters, the sudden silence overwhelming and welcome all at once, "everyone but me…"

_Because in the end, **you** were my freedom, Mina._


End file.
